“I’ll…oh god that’s so warm! I’ll tell you when”

“Where do I?”

“Just there. Just…. Yeah. Push. Gently. It’s…. stop. Wait. Now push… stop stop. Let me wait a sec… Again, Ish, and OH”

“Is it hurting?”

“Not now! Oh, that’s so good. Just lie still for a second… now. Slowly, move and, oh god, I’m, is that nice for you?”

“It’s… I…”

“Just shush for now, and your hand—oh yes. Kiss me?”

The whispering stopped but was gradually replaced by gasps, and finally a grunt. Then:

“Did I hurt you when I did that?”

“Ish, I am still seeing stars! I haven’t… That was amazing. When you… that pushed me so high. Can you find some tissues? Need to wipe. Did you like it?”

“When can we do it again?”

“Whenever you want to”

“Did you come here planning to do it?”

“No, but I came wanting to, and, well, Kim said I should come prepared”

“That bottle?”

“Some stuff she uses. Much better than what Ritchie had”

Not your business, Rhodes. I decided to leave the associated hygiene lecture until the weekend was over, for I knew full well exactly what they had been doing. Not today; let them have their weekend together. I saw to my own needs as quietly as possible before settling down again with my wife, realising she was awake as I did so. She put her mouth close to my ear, her whisper barely audible.

“I heard. Should we speak to them?”

“After the weekend, love. They’re both adults, sort of. Let them have their fairy tale for now”

“And my bus ride into town this morning?”

“Of course”

“How quiet can you keep?”

Quieter than the others, it turned out, although Maz stuffed her face into a pillow towards the end of things.

Another glorious morning, refuting all my assumptions about rain and mud, another epic breakfast, prepared by others this time, before my family was off into town, accompanied by Pablo’s lot, plus Alys and a grinning Steph.

“So I like birds too! And the boys want a long ride out today, so it will be all testosterone wars and sweatiness”

The bus dropped us off by some half-timbered houses, which delighted Maz, and Steph led us through the town pointing out her own ideas of highlights, such as a bicycle shop, an outdoor equipment shop, and “That supermarket where Geoff and me were caught snogging”, until we were at the edge of a small park.

“The festival used to be here, I’m told, but I only started coming after it moved. There’s a lake, in the middle of some sort of formalish flower gardens, and I am assuming that’s where our bird---there. See the twitchers?”

As we approached the huddle of men with their tripods and huge camera lenses, Caroline remarked, “Hate to break it to you, Steph, but we are actually being twitchers ourselves today”

“Yeah, but we can stop. They can’t. And we’ve got taste in music as well”

It was a bird, a small one shaped like a rubber duck, that kept diving just as people were getting their cameras ready for THAT photo. Our own birders were constantly muttering under their breath, until we finally had a full set of relieved sighs, and LC asked us where the dancing was. We left the (other) twitchers to their triple exposure sounds and worked our way back to the rather aptly named Pride Hill, given the natures of so many of our friends. A number of morris sides were already waving hankies or bashing sticks, which delighted our daughter almost to the point of wanting to stay and watch rather than sit and listen, a dilemma solved by Steph’s handy comment that there was a dance stage in what she called ‘The Village’, which wasn’t a flashback to Portmeirion but simply what the organisers called the collection of trade stands and ‘tent shops’, as I thought of them.

Before we caught the bus once again, we had ice creams. From a proper ice cream van. It had to be done, according to Maz, as part of her non-bucket list, and we spent the rest of that morning and lunchtime slumped by the ‘Village Stage’ as LC oscillated between riding things, or rather falling off them, with the three other little ones, and staring at the dancers as they did flashy things with their feet or noisy things with bits of wood or metal. We lost love’s young dreamers, though, for Ish had a cooly aily workshop and, I assume, Clara had swooning dreamily practice. I wasn’t coping with it, though. I was certain I jnew what exactly they had been doing, and while my sensible head was reminding me that it was a pretty common practice among straight couples, it was my son. I need to talk him through the risks, general safety, hygiene and so on, but my hindbrain was still going ‘Ick!’. Was that really me? Dad the homophobe? That thought alone brought another wave of emotion and confusion, because it wasn’t homophobia, sort of officially, but…

I slapped the negative thoughts down hard. They had the weekend, and they would have whatever time we had in Cardiff, and one way or other they would survive their inevitable parting.

We met at the food tent, as previously arranged, before another visit to the dance marquee for willow stripping and chaining ladies, once again hitting the water bottles, before heading back to the previous evening’s stage for a Galician piper and Show of Hands. First, though, we had an apology from the MC.

“Hello again! We have a great evening for you here tonight, but those of you expecting some shanty singing will have to satisfy yourselves with the Longest Johns, who are in the Sabrina tent tomorrow afternoon and then the Severn stage tomorrow evening. Our programmed act for this evening was ‘Keelhauled’, but they have been taken rather ill, and, well, I am told I don’t want to know the details. Instead, and at amazingly short notice, we have a young woman who puts the ‘multi’ into multi-instrumental, so let’s have that huge Shrewsbury welcome for the talented, the amazing, the sometimes hilarious, CHRISSY MORGAN!”

Diane was sitting next to Maz, and I caught her leaning over to Maz to pass a comment, which resulted in a grimace from my wife and a shrug from our friend. I would find out later, no doubt, but for now it was Chrissy again, and we got the full range of jokes and silliness together with heartfelt songs and amazing virtuoso playing. When she hurdied and gurdied, as she described it, there was near silence as she played. When she dragged out her ‘Border pipes’, it was with her trademark grin and apologies for sneaking in before the bagpipe specialist.

“Anyway, he’s from Galicia, and I’m not. Now, I don’t know if I should tell this, but Keelhauled are suffering from the inability to retain nutriment in an internal way---yeah, yeah, get the groans out, better that than something else. Oddly, a friend of mine is here, and she had to leave one of her offspring behind for much the same reason. Anyway, my set here is a bit impromptu, so I have decided on a number I don’t normally do, as it seems apt. First, some jigs. If you want to dance, try not to shake loose any body parts”

Ish and Clara were away with Rita to the front, not returning until the interval, and I was astonished when the next song turned out to be by the Bonzos. It wasn’t exactly apt, as it was about the inability to deposit rather than a failure to retain, but Chrissy described the ‘chorus’ succinctly: “It just goes ‘Nnnnnnggggnnnnngggggnnnnnggg’ and pause! You’ll get it. Or rather, I hope you won’t, at least not in the sense of Keelhauled”

I took the opportunity to grab some drinks in the break, and when I delivered hers to my wife (want to go off dancing, son, I’m not getting you ale), I took the chance to catch up with Di about whatever had brought that grimace from Maz.

“Oh, sort of same thing as that missing act, except it’s Rhod’s little sis. Just before we were all packed up to come here, she’s firing at both ends. Sort of okay now, but she’s with my parents for the weekend. Didn’t want to risk a relapse. Something she picked up at her play group, we think. Remember the washing machine bit in ‘Trainspotting’?”

My mind wanted to say yes, but my mouth came out with “Oh god!”

“Yup. Who are the Bonzos, by the way?”

Another reminder of my age.

“Oh, old sort of comedy group. Bit weird. What’s your girl called?”

“Tabitha Anne Bridget. She’s just coming up to three. We were tempted to cancel, but, well, you, Maz and the kids. Had to be done”

“HELLO SHREWSBURY!”

We were off again, this time led by a slim and very bald man who couldn’t seem to stop dancing as he played. In fact, he ended up with what seemed like a major part of the audience on stage with him as he led a sort of conga dance, and while Caroline and her husband weren’t among those, they were both missing-presumed-dancing-at-the-front while he was playing. In fact, we didn’t get any of our absent friends back until Show of Hands had finished with ‘Galway Farmer’ by way of ‘Roots’, ‘Cousin Jack’, ‘Columbus’, ‘Santiago’, ‘Country Life’ and others that I simply settled down and bellowed or crooned along to.

Musical instruments are great things, and I can get very into a good tune, but my thing is and always has been songs: words that mean things, words that can be shared and returned. Words bind in ways that differ from tunes, for while tunes can cut straight through to that famous hindbrain, spurring the need to move, or steering emotions, words can make you think; while it is a dead heat in raising emotions, those from inspired lyrics can put a sharper focus on it.

‘I won’t celebrate five hundred years of plundering wealth and scattering tears’
‘I hope you died quick, I hope you died clean…’
‘Keep your hand upon your wages, and your eyes upon the scales’

Ye gods, I was getting maudlin, and we hadn’t even heard Richard Thompson yet.

The music had finished, and our pilgrims returned two by two to gather their chairs and other bits and pieces as I watched LC, who seemed remarkably awake, given the hour. We headed back to our tents, or at least in that direction, because we were sideswiped by the sounds coming from the Berwick Bar, as a tunes session was hammering away at one end while a singaround dominated the other.

Well, it was only sleep, and they had ale. We stowed our folding furniture, grabbed whatever instruments people had, or girded our lungs, and I do believe it was about two in the morning when we finally surrendered.

Maz and I found some ear plugs.